PonyFans.com

I am starting this thread to get some input on Jimmy Tubbs as a coach. (This is by no means as a result of the Memphis game, but instead a long time educated basketball fan) Was he the right man for the job? I understand that it is very early in his coaching tenure, but you have to be worried about the direction of the program. Tubbs' biggest selling point was that he was able to recruit. I believe that he has not failed as a recruiter but he has not improved our recruiting from the Dement era.

The more that i watch Tubbs as a coach the more that I think he does not have the slightest idea of what he is doing. I use to think that there was zero game plan with Dement, but after watching Tubbs for a year and a half Dement looks like a X's and O's genius. I also remember when he came in he talked about a pressure defense, Where is it???

I also feel that the fan support of the program is starting to deminish, which is definitely a bad sign for a coach. Will Jimmy Tubbs lead us out of the world of mediocrity. I really hope so but i do not think that it looks very promising.

This is just a quick post and I am looking forward to the replys and to see what other ponyfans think about this topic.

where do you people come from? You're an avid basketball follower, but on your fourth post on this board you basically call for the coach's head in a passive aggressive way?

Maybe you can enlighten us all on what a great position Dement left this program in. Tubbs recruiting is better than anything Dement did on his own when Tubbs was away at OU. We are paying for that right now. I guess we could be so lucky to have Neil Doughtery and his 4-13 tcu record with a loss to a D-2 school over here.

Tubbs is doing fine and he is reconstructing the program in the methodical way that you have to at SMU. There are no shortcuts here, and to start this crap in a guy's second year here is ignorant.

Tubbs will do as well as anyone you could realistically hire here, but he'd do better if he had facilities.

Hey HoopFan. Believe it or not, knowledge of the game of basketball isn't determined by how many posts you have on ponyfans. Maybe mustangnation is a former DI hoops player and SMU fan who has recently come accross the board. How do you know the extent of his basketball knowledge? All you know is he came across ponyfans at a later date than you did. Who am I to say you could be wrong though. I mean you have so many posts, you must know everything...[deleted].

For instance, you have to have at least a dozen posts before you can call people names on this site.

It takes the right players to run a pressing defense. Perhaps with a bunch of underclassmen on the floor and a 7'1' center, a zone might be preferable right now. Make the other team shoot long range. Have you thought of that or just decided we should press other teams just because? We have been missing two starters for the first half of the year. You think that might alter game plans a bit? A pressing defense also requires depth on our bench. How many minutes of Hopkins playing time would you sacrifice so we could run a press? And a press is hardest on the guards who run around chasing the ball. Tubbs may not be the next Dean Smith, Coach K, or John Thompson, but who knows. John Thompson needed several seasons to put Georgetown on the map. And really didn't do it until a 7'1' inch center arrived named Ewing. Add another 100 pounds to Fall and you might see a real movement in this program.

Hoop Fan wrote:where do you people come from? You're an avid basketball follower, but on your fourth post on this board you basically call for the coach's head in a passive aggressive way?

Maybe you can enlighten us all on what a great position Dement left this program in. Tubbs recruiting is better than anything Dement did on his own when Tubbs was away at OU. We are paying for that right now. I guess we could be so lucky to have Neil Doughtery and his 4-13 tcu record with a loss to a D-2 school over here.

Tubbs is doing fine and he is reconstructing the program in the methodical way that you have to at SMU. There are no shortcuts here, and to start this crap in a guy's second year here is ignorant.

Tubbs will do as well as anyone you could realistically hire here, but he'd do better if he had facilities.

I am not saying that Dement left this program in better shape, but I thought that when you change coaches you are trying to improve, not laterally move. I have a question for you, what leads you to believe that Tubbs has the program moving in the right direction? Unlike in football where you can say the talent has improved. Our win/loss record certainly has not improved. I also wish everyone would quit using better facilities as an excuse for losing. bottomline is that we don't have them so Tubbs needs to find a way to win with what he has.

3 great replies to start. 3 attacks on others. Why don't we just discuss our opinion on the subject at hand?

Noone can expect for Tubbs to pull 5 star players from the DFW area who are considering Kansas, UNC, Duke, Indiana, and other power houses. The fact that we are even in consideration for a guy like Slim Shady and others like him is impressive. As our team and facilities improve, our recruiting will only get better and better in my opinion.

With that said, I do question the actual coaching style Tubbs has. It seems to me that the talent on our roster does not match our style of play. We have a poor shooting team yet have half court spread offense that lends itself to taking lots of jump shots. We have a promising freshman in Brian Morris with rather good footwork on the block, yet never feed him in the post. In every game I have been to this year it seems as if our opponent does not have to work for an open look at all while we struggle with contested jumpers as the shot clock expires. These seem to be pretty obvious problems. Unfortunately I do not have the answers as to how we should fix our problems, but sometimes I wonder if Tubbs has them either.

As far as I am concerned, Tubbs is doing just fine. Hopkins was his recruit, but the remaining sophmores and juniors were Dements. NONE of these guys has shown that they can put the ball through the hoop. I question whether any of them were truly division I recruits.

I have been impressed with Tubbs recruits from this past year. The Rivals ratings on these guys are much improved over Dements recruits. Addtionally, Tubbs has at least gotten several top recruits to visit, which Dement could never do. The previous year he was stuck with Dement's early recruits who he now is having to weed out one by one. Ritter is the latest one to go. As his recruits, such as Morris and Fall, mature we will get a better idea of now only how well he has recruited, but how well he can coach! I do know that the competition is having a tougher time blowing us out of a game under Tubbs because of our improved defense. While Memphis won by 20, I dare say that we would have lost by twice that if Dement were still coach. Tubbs has a 4 year contract. Questions about his abilities should be deferred until we see how he can do with his upperclass recruits in that 4th year, which will be their senior season.

EastStang wrote:It takes the right players to run a pressing defense. Perhaps with a bunch of underclassmen on the floor and a 7'1' center, a zone might be preferable right now. Make the other team shoot long range. Have you thought of that or just decided we should press other teams just because? We have been missing two starters for the first half of the year. You think that might alter game plans a bit? A pressing defense also requires depth on our bench. How many minutes of Hopkins playing time would you sacrifice so we could run a press? And a press is hardest on the guards who run around chasing the ball. Tubbs may not be the next Dean Smith, Coach K, or John Thompson, but who knows. John Thompson needed several seasons to put Georgetown on the map. And really didn't do it until a 7'1' inch center arrived named Ewing. Add another 100 pounds to Fall and you might see a real movement in this program.

I agree that you cannot press the entire game, but you can play pressure defense. Anyone who has been to the games the last year and a half will tell you that we allow way to many open jump shots. I mean contesting shots and fighting through picks. Not a full court press. As far as sacrificing Hopkins PT, if he expects to be a NBA guard prospect he better be able to play 30-35 min of pressure D.

Its completely obvious that the defense is better under Tubbs than it was under Dement. I dont see how anyone could question that. Offense is about the same, stagnant. Limited scoring ability. Most of our guys dont pass well, so I guess the Princeton offense is out. Ball handling is limited. Shooting too. Have they invented a magic offense that can overcome those things yet?

Why is the basketball program in such a sad state to begin with? They didn't get the death penalty! And I know about the power shift to the far left after Pye got here. It doesn't take that many players to turn a bball program around. It seems like twenty years ago, that we had quite a few large crowds against Fresno, TCU, Tulsa etc..... and Moody was rocking! Now we have gone backwards with the talent, and the attendance. What gives? With the exception of Hopkins, everyone else seems scared to shoot!

Hoop Fan wrote:Its completely obvious that the defense is better under Tubbs than it was under Dement. I dont see how anyone could question that. Offense is about the same, stagnant. Limited scoring ability. Most of our guys dont pass well, so I guess the Princeton offense is out. Ball handling is limited. Shooting too. Have they invented a magic offense that can overcome those things yet?

Actually there is an offense. Establish an inside/out game. This allows for more wide open shots from the perimeter. Although i do not believe that our talent is a bad as you say you are actually agreeing with me. Why would Tubbs continue to play a perimeter motion offense forcing our "bad shooting guards" to take long range contested shots. This is the bad X's and Os that i am talking about.
What makes it so obvious that the defense is better? I am still seeing the opponent get open look after open look. They MIGHT be holding opponents to a lower scoring average(I do not have any stats), but that is due to our offense taking the entire shot clock to shoot a contested three pointer.

The offense is abysmal. Everyone seems very tenative and afraid to do anything. We don't have anyone who can shoot worth a damn. Dez doesn't have anyone to pass it to that can catch a pass. I am surprised that Hopkins and Dez haven't had any kind of connection or cuts/slashes to the basket on a regular basis. I haven't seen practice but I'd like to see what's going on there b/c it certainly isn't translating to the games. We have to be in the lowest assist category in the conference.

Roberts and Pearson were much better last year and I don't know what happened to them. Roberts seems to be the new Isham. He was driving the lane more last year. Simpson and Castro look like All-Americans compared to the bunch we have now.

Defense is better than Dement and thank goodness we don't have to see the 1-3-1 every single game with teams hitting 3's all night.

I don't know the answer, but he knew what he was getting into when he signed on b/c he had been here long enough to know the restrictions and limits of SMU. It's tough to recruit for an empty arena but it's time to get these kids off the Tubbs courtesy list and into a SMU uniform. I don't think Scott Drew or Gillespie has helped since they have been added to the recruiting mix.

Pony_Fan wrote:
I don't know the answer, but he knew what he was getting into when he signed on b/c he had been here long enough to know the restrictions and limits of SMU. It's tough to recruit for an empty arena but it's time to get these kids off the Tubbs courtesy list and into a SMU uniform. I don't think Scott Drew or Gillespie has helped since they have been added to the recruiting mix.

I like the Drew parallel. He has equivalent facilities. He coaches at a small, religious, private school and is doing far better than Tubbs is doing. I know that he coaches in the Big 12, but that doesnt hold near as much water as it does in football. Drew was also at a disadvantage compared to Tubbs because he took a program that was as low as it can be and he does not have the advantage of being in Dallas. Drew also came here without near as many recruiting connections as Tubbs.

mustangnation wrote:I like the Drew parallel. He has equivalent facilities. He coaches at a small, religious, private school and is doing far better than Tubbs is doing. I know that he coaches in the Big 12, but that doesnt hold near as much water as it does in football. Drew was also at a disadvantage compared to Tubbs because he took a program that was as low as it can be and he does not have the advantage of being in Dallas. Drew also came here without near as many recruiting connections as Tubbs.

I haven't been down there but they apparently have a lot of things in the works in terms of facility improvements and practice courts. SMU has things on the drawing board and need to get them done quickly if they want to compete.